Oral hygiene is one of the most important aspects of personal care among consumers. Consumers all over the world use different types of products for oral care. People routinely brush their teeth with a toothbrush and a dentifrice which may be a toothpaste or a toothpowder at least two times a day. Use of such brushing ensures maintaining good oral hygiene by minimising oral bacteria that accumulate in the mouth over the course of sleeping in the night or during the course of the day when people eat their food and consume beverages. Brushing, thus minimises problems like cavities, tartar, gingivitis, caries, and bad breath, also known as halitosis.
In spite of brushing teeth twice a day, many people suffer from various forms of one or more of the above named diseases and this is believed to be caused by bacteria acting in the oral mucosa over the about twelve hour period between brushing. During such times, people resort to rinsing/gargling their mouth with an antiseptic mouthwash. Most antiseptic mouthwashes contain a substantial amount of alcohol (e.g. ethyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol) for killing oral bacteria.
In solving the above oral care problems, the approach so far has been to use synthetic materials (e.g. Triclosan) which are believed by many consumers to be harsh on them. Consumers, more and more, especially of late, prefer using products that contain natural materials. Further, in many countries, culturally or otherwise, people are reluctant to using alcohol in their mouthwashes.
The present inventors have been working on solving these problems and have come up with an oral care composition which includes natural materials that are found to interact synergistically with certain metal salts in killing S. mutans, a bacterium responsible for tooth decay.
Essential oils actives have been cited in prior publications in oral care.
JP2196718 (Kowa, 1989) discloses a liquid for external use having increased solubility and stability, containing 0.1 to 5% indomethacin and a 0.3 to 10% dissolution auxiliary as essential components, the dissolution auxiliary selected from limonene, pinene, camphene, cymene, citronellol, geraniol, nerol, linalool, terpineol, rhodinol, borneol, isoborneol, menthone, camphor, thymol, safrole, isosafrole, eugenol and isoeugenol.
WO 00/00166 (Warner Lambert) discloses an oral composition that includes thymol, a zinc salt and a sweetener is disclosed. The oral composition has antitartar, antiplaque, antigingivitis efficacy, long lasting breath freshening and high consumer acceptability in spite of the presence of two ingredients, thymol and a zinc salt, that are known to taste bad.
None of the publications, to date, teach that a mixture of antimicrobial essential oil actives thymol and terpineol when used along with a specific metal salt provides for fast acting anti-microbial action, in a synergistic way. The present inventive combination provides vastly improved and synergistic anti-bacterial efficacy as compared to a combination of zinc salt and thymol as disclosed in WO 00/00166.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art, or to provide a useful alternative.
Another object of the present invention is to provide for an antimicrobial composition that has relatively fast antimicrobial action in killing bacteria in the oral cavity.